


Mad

by BloodRedRidingHood



Series: I'll Be Your Shield [22]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Secrets, The Winter Soldier - Freeform, confronting her past, etc. - Freeform, natasha finds things out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 13:46:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1650791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodRedRidingHood/pseuds/BloodRedRidingHood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even through the darkness encroaching on her vision, she could see in his eyes that the man she had once loved, the man whose death she had mourned right into the waiting arms of SHIELD, had been completely erased.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to shieldandgun and shan21non on Tumblr for the shoutout! 
> 
> Russian translations at the bottom.

Natasha stared at the gun pointed at her face. The man pointing the gun at her, the man she thought had died years ago, looked coldly at her. She didn’t blame him; the worst thing you could do to an assassin is interrupt their kill. He should have shot her by now.

Not taking her eyes off the barrel, she held up her hands slowly. “James?” she asked. “Ti’ menya znayesh?” He flinched at the Russian, but continued to hold the gun on her. She tried again. “Ti' menya pomnish?. Natal’ya. Chernaya vdova.”

James clenched his jaw. She could see the panic in his eyes, and could only imagine the pain in his head. She remembered when she started fighting her programming. Her head had felt like it was simultaneously imploding and melting when the flickers of her past began to bleed through. He was holding it together extremely well.

“James.” 

He lowered the gun a fraction of an inch and she took a hesitant step forward, her hands still raised. “Ty byl mertv. Oni skazali, chto ty umer.” He said. She looked into his eyes. He didn’t move, so she took another step, then stopped when he raised the gun again. “Ne peremeshchayte.” 

She stepped back and lowered her arms. “You killed the man I loved,” she said flatly. “If you know anything about me in that padlocked brain, then you know that I have to bring you in or take you out.”

“That’s not going to happen,” James tells her in English. He cocks the gun and aims right between her eyes. She doesn’t blink. “You’re a traitor, vdova. I should have shot you in that park, too.”

She gives him a small smile before lunging. He’s a fraction of a second too late when he fires, and let’s out a grunt as Natasha slams her shoulder into his stomach. He’s strong, so he only moves an inch before grabbing her hair. His knee comes up and makes contact with her nose, and she tastes blood immediately. Using her hair, he threw her backwards, and she came out of it in a somersault. She spat blood out of her mouth and stood up just as the sound of gunfire reached her ears.

She felt the impact to her abdomen within milliseconds. It felt like a punch, like James had pummeled her with his metal arm. The pain followed quickly, dropping her to her knees even as she tried to step toward him. She clutched at her middle, feeling the warm blood seep from the wound. James’s footsteps came toward her, and his left hand closed around her throat. 

He lifted her up, dangling her off the ground. He squeezed slightly, closing off her airway. She clawed at the metal weakly, opening and closing her mouth, trying anything to take a breath. He brought her close, their noses almost touching. Even through the darkness encroaching on her vision, she could see in his eyes that the man she had once loved, the man whose death she had mourned right into the waiting arms of SHIELD, had been completely erased. 

She was unconscious by the time her limp body hit the brick wall behind her with a crack.

When she came to, she was being carried. She couldn’t focus on his face, but his arms felt familiar. Natasha could barely move without blinding pain in her shoulder or gut. She whimpered as the man carrying her adjusted her in his arms.

“Hush, sweetheart,” he said as the darkness took her again. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

When she woke next, she was in a large bed in a white room. Her left arm was in a sling, and an IV was in her right arm, leading to a drip bag and pole to the side of the bed. She started to get up, but the pain in her gut stopped her. As she lay there, she took in her surroundings. The bed was flanked by windows on each side, as well as another on the wall to her left. To her right, the wall was taken over by mirrored closets, and a closed door faced her. The ceilings were vaulted, giving the room an airy feeling, and the floors were a brilliant hardwood. Next to the IV pole was a heavy wooden nightstand with a lamp and a framed photo of her and Steve from Stark’s Christmas Eve party. The photographer had gotten them in perfect profile, staring into each other’s eyes on the dance floor. Despite the amount of people on the dance floor around and behind them, they were the only ones in focus. It was truly a beautiful photo. She reached out and put it face down on the stand.

Using the mirrors, she lifted up the shirt she was wearing —one of Steve’s, she noted sadly— and examined herself. She had a dressing taped to her stomach, slightly above and to the left of her bellybutton. Lifting gingerly, she saw a hole in her abdomen, more than half-way healed. GSW, she determined. Gingerly, she sat forward and felt around her back. Exit wound, good. She sat back with a grimace. She’d had worse, she thought, remembering the time she had spent in the hospital the year before. The sling and pain in her back was a mystery, though. She had no recollection of getting shot, so she couldn’t even begin to piece together what had happened to her shoulder.

Gritting her teeth, she swung her legs off the bed, gripping the IV pole tightly. Once she stood up, the pain wasn’t so bad. She didn’t move for a minute, letting herself adjust. She had no idea how long she had been out of it, but she was weak and shaking. Finally, using the pole for support, she shuffled to the door.

She had almost reached it when it swung open. Hissing in pain, she jumped back. She had no way of defending herself, save the IV pole in her right hand, but she needed that to help herself stand, so she braced herself. When she saw who had opened the door, she relaxed her stance and raised an eyebrow.

“Get your ass back in bed, Romanoff,” Clint said, holding a tray of food. “You’re not supposed to be awake yet.” He jerked his chin behind her at the bed, and she complied, scowling at him as she did so. When she was settled back against the pillows, he set the tray of food down on her lap.

“Where are we?” she asked, taking a bite of toast. “And what do you mean that I’m not supposed to be awake yet?”

“Fury had you out,” Clint said, snatching a slice of bacon off the plate. “Almost two weeks. Figured he had to keep you under in order for you to heal. He knew you’d be mad, but that’s not unusual for you. As for where we are— ” he grabbed another slice of bacon— “we are in your brand new house.”

“What?” Natasha asked, moving the tray from her lap. She didn’t need an answer, though. She remembered the key in the diner. “How long have I been here?”

Clint took the food and set it on the floor before climbing onto the bed next to Natasha. She let him pull her into his arms, nestling into his chest as she stared at the closed door. Clint told her that she had been in a medically induced coma for almost two weeks, and that Fury had ordered her to be moved to the house that morning. Clint had strict orders to keep her there at all costs; once again, her agent status had been revoked until psych cleared her. The fact that she had disappeared on a vigilante mission less than two days after Steve’s death, and was found shot and unconscious on a roof in Washington DC had given Dr Parker and Fury reason to believe that she wasn’t exactly mentally stable.

They stayed like that for a while, until a knock on the door pulled Clint away. As he went downstairs, she adjusted herself and grabbed the plate of food that had been set aside. As she munched on toast, she heard Clint welcoming someone inside, followed by two sets of footsteps up the stairs. Clint came back into the room, closely followed by a doctor from SHIELD medical.

As the doctor removed her IV, he gave her instructions to take it easy. Despite her accelerated healing factors, she still had some internal damage from the bullet and the fracture in her scapula had another week at most before it was fully healed. After that, she needed some form of physical therapy, which all three of them knew she would do. 

After the doctor left, taking the IV pole with him, she looked at Clint. “Show me the house?”

She leaned on Clint as he led her out of the room. To her right was a banister and the wooden staircase that led downstairs. To her left, a spiral staircase led up to the attic, followed by a second bedroom. Directly across from the master bedroom was a bathroom, which she made a note to check out in length. 

Downstairs, if she went right, there was a family room with a fireplace, and a sitting room that was mostly windows. To the left, there was the kitchen and dining room, both of which had door leading out to a deck. There were wooden floors throughout, except for in the bathroom and kitchen, and so much natural light that she actually had to squint. 

Clint told her that the basement had been converted to a training room, but that she needed to rest a bit before she saw it. He guided her to a chair in front of the fireplace, and she sat. Looking around her, she sighed.

“He bought this house for us,” she said, not really talking to Clint. He seemed to know that she wasn’t trying to make conversation, so he sat back on the couch by the window and watched her. “What am I going to do here?”

She looked up at the portrait hanging over the mantel. It was another shot of her and Steve, this time from Coney Island. He had taken her there not long after she had gotten out of SHIELD’s psych unit. They had asked a random passerby to snap their photo in front of the Wonder Wheel. She’d had on large sunglasses and he’d had a ball cap pulled low over his eyes; the stranger hadn’t recognized them, had handed their camera back to them with a nod and a smile. In the photo, she was tucked up against his side, with her right hand on his chest, ring glittering brilliantly, and his arms holding her tightly. Natasha looked down, twisting the ring as she remembered laughing with him as they looked out over the ocean.

She tightened her jaw, blinked away tears, and looked at Clint, who looked back at her as if he knew she wasn’t going to talk about Steve. He was right. Instead, she forced a smile and stood up, and walked into the kitchen. She spent a few minutes opening cupboards and seeing what was in them and found them fully stocked with a lovely set of china and everyday dishes, definitely not the sort of stuff Steve would have bought.

“Clint?” she yelled over her shoulder. “Where did all this stuff come from?”

Instead of an answer, she heard Clint say “Oh, shit!” as he knocked something over. Leaning back, she saw him running towards the door, but he didn’t make it before she heard the latch open. She walked silently to the doorway of the kitchen and looked into the entry way. 

Clint was trying to push a very tall, very muscular blond man out the door, but stopped when when Natasha let out a gasp. Both men turned toward her and Clint let out a sigh of defeat.

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to Sasha for helping me with my Russian phonetics. You're a huge doll.
> 
> Translations  
> ~"Ti’ menya znayesh?" = "Do you know me?"  
> ~"Ti' menya pomnish?" = "Do you remember me?"  
> ~"Natal'ya." = "Natalia."  
> ~"Chernaya vdova." = "Black Widow."  
> ~"Ty byl mertv. Oni skazali, chto ty umer." = "You were dead. They said you were dead."  
> ~"Ne peremeshchayte." = "Do not move."
> 
> Also, the house I used for reference is actually for sale! http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3043-Avenue-R-Brooklyn-NY-11229/30757225_zpid/


End file.
